Customer Reviews

Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program, 1976-2004

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The author shows the ups and downs of JPL's contribution to the US space program over some 30 years. Perhaps the most revealing aspect is the narrow gap between success and failure of most if not all missions. In this time period, perhaps the most spectacular results were given by the 2 Voyager spacecrafts, doing the planetary flybys of the outer solar system. Yet Westwick points out how the first craft almost succumbed very early in its mission, and how the second might also have had the same fate.

Of the manifold what-ifs in the book, the "faster, better, cheaper" idea is the most intriguing. Pushed by Robert Staehle and Ross Jones since the late 80s, it suggested making smaller and cheaper spacecrafts. With few instruments, granted, but also being able to be made and launched with less risk per craft. This idea was strongly promoted, for all of NASA and not just JPL. Also, with the end of the Cold War in 1990, there was an unexpected peace dividend. SDI (Star Wars) declassified some small spacecrafts that they had designed, and made these available to NASA. Which seemed to fit nicely into the faster, better, cheaper credo.

However the actual exploration record after 1990 was mixed. With Clementine doing a successful lunar flyby but then getting lost. The best results were made by the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner. But the book tells of how there was still a strong institutional preference for big missions. In part because of multiyear funding stability, and thus the ability to hold large groups together for extended periods.

The result seems to have been a compromise. With some relatively small projects made under the alternate approach. The reader might wonder how matters could have differed, if JPL had been able to strongly take that road.